Nephrology News Roundup

Here’s a roundup of nephrology news over the past couple weeks. Click on the headlines to browse the articles. Or, if you’ve discovered other newsworthy items that may be of interest to our team or your nephrologist peers, we invite you to please share news links in the comments.

In Texas, more than 45,000 patients depend on dialysis treatments to stay alive, including more than 10,000 in Greater Houston alone. The nonprofit American Kidney Fund has activated its Disaster Relief Program to provide emergency funds to help Texas dialysis patients whose homes or clinics are affected by Hurricane Harvey and the expected catastrophic flooding.

The rising demand for dialysis has led to a boom in outpatient clinics that specialize in it. Those centers and their profits are now the subject of a pitched battle in Sacramento over proposals to supplement federal regulations on the centers with new state requirements.

Prof KS Chugh, the son of a small farmer in Patti (Punjab)—born in 1932—fought against all odds in that small village, rising to become an emeritus professor of nephrology and is now a former professor and head, Department of Nephrology, PGI, Chandigarh. He is a renowned nephrologist, known as the “father of nephrology” in India.

In what other profession can one be as ill-prepared to understand the complexity of appropriately billing for services as in medicine? After years of intense study of the clinical minutia of nephrology and passing multiple examinations culminating in board certification, nephrologists enter practice generally naive of how to appropriately document, code, and bill—which are the life blood of operating a successful practice and earning an income.

Chronic kidney disease is both a cause and consequence of hypertension. In patients with both conditions, accurate evaluation and a tailored treatment program are essential for successful hypertension management.

As kidney function declines, infection risk rises, according to a study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The researchers found that infection rates grew almost 6-fold in patients with stage 4 or higher chronic kidney disease, compared to those with normal kidney function.

The International Diabetes Federation Diabetes Atlas estimated that by 2040 approximately 642 million people worldwide will be afflicted with diabetes. Chronic kidney disease is the major precipitating factor to end-stage renal disease and is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular events, which remains the leading cause of death in patients with type 1 diabetes.